The 155 mpg California Commuter
Another gem from the fine folks at the Yahoo! Tilting Vehicles group. Amazing how long ago this was. It looks SO much like Luke's Tatooine speeder from Ep 4.
I’m not the only one!
Here's a very similar project: Scooter + shell = mpg!
See the whole project here.
Big thanks to Modern Vespa and Modern Buddy!
I've been active on both of these boards since before I bought my first scooter, and now I've reached out to them to get involved with Project Streetliner. So far, there's been a ton of great collaboration. Check out the threads below.
The Velomobiles of Flickr
Here's a slide show from the Velomobile Flickr Pool. So many great shapes in here.
Visual appeal
I'm such a minimalist when it comes to paintwork and graphics on vehicles, but I have to admit that I'm thoroughly charmed by this clown fish Velomobile. I think that I'd be smart to paint Project Streetliner in loud colors, but I love two-tone silver so very much.
Gizmag’s comprehensive review of narrow-track vehicles
Gizmag is one of my favorite new tech news sources precisely because of their affinity for new vehicles. This video is a fan-tast-ic overview of all the single and narrow track vehicles in the pipeline right now. They've put those innovations into very sharp perspective as well — laying out the reality of traffic congestion we're going to face in the next decade and beyond. With the number of cars on the roads worldwide set to double in that time period (greatly outpacing the growth of road infrastructure), one of the best solutions may indeed be smaller vehicles optimized for efficient commuting. Narrower, nimbler vehicles means not only drastically less fuel consumption, but less congestion.
What this means for Project Streetliner is that I'm re-evaluating width. The seed of this idea was essentially for a recumbent version of the Piaggio MP3 with a streamliner shell on it. In the video, the presenter talks about how the Nissan Land Glider concept began explicitly with a half-width vehicle. In my mind, a vehicle like Concept #2 would be about 2/3 the width of a standard car. If I adopt a more narrow track and shroud the vehicle more like a Velomobile, that could make for a very interesting vehicle.
The Ace Cycle-Car
Seattle-based Liberty Motors makes this Morgan-esque three wheel vehicle that I think is just fantastic. Scale it down a touch and put leaning suspension up front and it's very, very close to what I want Project Streetliner to ultimately be, even in aesthetic sensibility.
But what I'm especially interested to see are the specifications on their website. Specifically, the 950 lb curb weight. Given that this vehicle appears to be made completely out of steel, including the body, and powered by a 103" Harley motor, that's pretty darn light. I really think that this makes my 500 lb goal for Project Streetlinervery realistic.
